Cronuts! A Revisit to Azucar (Ocean Beach)

It was way back in 2011 when Jorgina posted about Azucar in Ocean Beach.  Can’t believe it has been that long.  We haven’t had a follow up post since then, so what better time than now!?  It doesn’t hurt that they hopped on the cronuts train and serve their very own “craynuts” as they like to call them, every Monday at 12:00pm sharp.  Anh and I have been on a mission to try our very own first cronut, but Paris Baguette has failed us a few times by selling out too fast.  Would this be our lucky day?

Apparently so!  They limit you to 4 “craynuts” per person at a whopping $4 each.  I’m not sure how much they cost at Paris Baguette, but I believe their limit is 3 per person.  As you can see, we wanted our wait to be worth it so we got more than one each.  🙂  Before I go into the good/bad that is the cronut, I want to warn you ahead of time… get there early and be ready to pounce when a line starts.  Anh and I got there at 11:45am and they told us they were serving them at 12:00pm.  A few other people came after us asking for cronuts as well and they told them the same.  So we ordered a coffee and waited patiently until 12:00pm at the back of the place, casually sipping, awaiting our cronut destiny.  In the quickness, before one could scream “craynut!!!” at 11:57am a line formed that went out the door!  I’m not going to lie, I was a little upset.  I’m sure other people who were there before us were too.  But all was not lost as long as they didn’t sell out!  I scurried to the back of the line, counting in my head (I think) how many people came after me, because that’s what I do.  I’ve read people wait as long as 5 hours for these suckers in New York.  So I guess I’m quite happy with the 30 minute process thank you very much.

Behold!  The “craynut” from Azucar!  This week they featured a key lime flavor.  Naturally, I’d imagine a mashup of a croissant and a donut.  This had the shape, filling, and glaze of a donut, but with the interior texture of a croissant.  It was super flaky, with an almost crisp-like consistency and broke away in your mouth with each bite.  They were generous with the key lime filling and for some, the tartness may be too much to handle.  But we love our key lime tart and it was great! It was all about the texture and I could dangerously eat more than a few of these in one sitting.  With that said, if you’re thinking of ordering a bunch at once and want to stock up, I’d recommend against it.  They break down and don’t hold up very well.  We tried one at night and you could notice a big difference in the texture, losing it’s crisp flaky interior.  Even still, this was a welcomed change and we’re looking forward to comparing our next cronut to this one!  I heard they had a coconut filled cronut before and it looks like they switch the flavors up often.

I don’t typically cap on something so seemingly inconsequential, but I thought it was necessary so you all are prepared to get your cronut on with peace of mind. I do have one wish, create a line system that would help avoid potentially making people feel a little bit slighted.  Maybe there is a very good reason for this that is unbeknownst to me.  All I know is if people got there early (ahead of other people) and didn’t get anything to show for it in the end, it would cause unrest amongst the cronut gods and their many worshippers.  The visit was a success so enough about that.  Our goal was to get some cronuts, which we did, and now we know their system.  If we want to go back we’ll casually hover nearby and turn aggressive at 11:57am sharp.